Progress of Canadiens’ young defence factoring into long-awaited winning streak

MONTREAL — They were the three stars of the game, and justifiably so for cementing the Canadiens’ first win streak of their season.

Cayden Primeau was 1:01 away from extending his Bell Centre shutout streak to over 180 minutes when Owen Tippett beat him, but he had already played the biggest role in this win by making 29 saves. He followed David Savard and Nick Suzuki back onto the ice for the curtain call and might as well have taken a bow.

They were great, too, with Savard blocking seven shots before taking his victory lap and heading to the Canadiens’ room to tape an icebag around his right ankle while Suzuki directly preceded Primeau after scoring his 30^th goal of the season and registering his 69^th point within less than four minutes of play to give the team a 2-0 lead in the first period.

But you know what didn’t get a whole lot of attention? The way Jayden Struble and Jordan Harris played as a pair.

It’s a tired hockey trope to call that a good thing. But for as exhausting as clichés are, they still ring true.

You know… The one about how the less you notice a defenceman, the better…

Not that the defencemen who were noticeable in this game were bad. Savard was unmissable — and not just to anyone watching, but to those shots flying off Flyer sticks. And Mike Matheson was brilliant, with three assists that brought his point total to 51.

But if Struble hadn’t assisted on Jesse Ylonen’s goal and later struck the post with a snapping backhand, he’d have been completely in the background of this win, alongside Harris, who was virtually mistake-free through his 18:44. And if you were watching closely, they looked like veterans, and not like guys who have 46 and 122 games of NHL experience, respectively.

There are 10 games left in what the Canadiens believe will be a springboard season in their rebuild, and we’ve spent 72 of them mostly referencing the healthy culture that’s been established and the propulsion of three top-line players in Suzuki, Juraj Slafkovsky and Cole Caufield as reasons the Canadiens might be justified in their belief.

But there may not be another factor edging this team closer to where it wants to go than the experience players like Struble, Harris, Kaiden Guhle and Arber Xhekaj have gotten.

We know, we know. They can’t all stay long-term. Not with David Reinbacher, Lane Hutson and Logan Mailloux knocking on the door.

But these four, who had 10 games of baggage between them at the start of last season — all 10 of them belonging to Harris, from the year prior — have each increased their individual value, and that’s going to vault the Canadiens forward in more than one way.

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“There’s a lot of value,” said Canadiens coach Martin St. Louis after Thursday’s 4-1 win. “To me, it’s promising to see that, at a young age, these guys have gotten a lot of experience. It’s not just games; they’ve played big minutes. I’ve said it before: You can’t buy those reps. For them to use that early in their career and develop in this environment and at the NHL level, it’s been earned, and they showed that they can handle it.”

They could’ve flopped completely. To suggest these kids — all of them under 24 years old — were thrown into the deep end of the pool would be understating it. Defence is the most challenging position outside of the net to excel at, and to have to play it in this market, at that age, could be like diving into high tide with weights strapped to your ankles.

No one has been more exposed than Guhle, who played 22:54 against the Flyers, or just 1:42 more than he’s averaged all season long.

This was just his 112^th game, but it looked like it was his 500^th with the way he played it.

We thought Guhle looked ready for this from the start of last season, but he’s really looked the part of an elite shutdown defenceman over the last two weeks to cap nearly two years playing nightly against top opposition.

“I think it all starts with the attitude of the player,” said St. Louis earlier on Thursday. “Guhles is very honest after his games, whether he produced or not. I think he knows exactly what’s up, and he’s a good critic of his own game. When you have that as a player, it’s rare that you don’t improve as a player. He has exceptional maturity, and that all comes from his attitude and the way he approaches and reflects on each game. His progress is amazing.”

Harris’s hasn’t quite been as glaring, but it’s there. He’s proving reliable, proving he has a firm place in a roster suddenly competing well enough to win with more regularity, and that’s going to benefit the Canadiens one way or another.

So is the emergence of Struble from seemingly out of nowhere.

After four years at Northeastern University and just 21 games in the American Hockey League, the former second-round pick of the organization feels the biggest thing he’s proven is that he can play at this level.

Suzuki thinks he can do more than just that.

“I think he can do a lot,” the captain said. “When he first got called up, just the poise he had and the confidence he had to make plays, you don’t really see that too much with a guy starting his NHL career. So he’s confident in his skating, able to keep gaps really tight, he’s physical…”

And Struble is just learning how much more physical he can be.

Being credited with just one hit against the Flyers wasn’t entirely indicative of his impact in that department. He was under everyone’s skin, like 23-year-old Xhekaj, who had three hits and three penalties.

Both of them have learned the value of never taking their places for granted — Xhekaj first, in being sent down to AHL for 17 games earlier this season, and Struble most recently (with a series of healthy scratches) — and that is as big a factor as any in their fast track to the next level.

The growth may be subtle to the eye, but it’s exponential.

“When I started, I was just trying to get used to the speed, just starting to get to know which players are fast, which ones I have to try to keep up with,” Xhekaj said on Thursday morning. “I think I was sitting back on my heels a lot more. I think now I have a different look of the game. I surf a lot more, I stay a lot more engaged, I’m on top of every guy now that I know what to expect.

“It’s kind of just come to me, and I don’t even think about it. I just do it now.”

Struble is finding his way through that process quickly, and Harris talked on Monday about just how much he’s learned in such a short span.

“You go up against Connor McDavid or Nathan MacKinnon, you just try to contain them,” he said. “Guys like them, Kucherov, they wait for you to go after them and if you jump at the wrong time, they’ll play right through you or around you.”

Watching Harris play over the last week, the reads and decisions have been made with all that information now processed and accepted. He’s much more aware on the ice and much more within himself, hence his impact on Thursday’s game.

It may not have been star-worthy, but it was just as big a reason for why the Canadiens won.

And what they have brewing on the backend is undeniably going to factor in more and more in short order.

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